Mister Yuck stickers were emphasized growing up for the obvious reasons. I recall watching news coverage of an anomalous tidal wave and thinking about all the Mister Yuck stickers washing into the ocean, fearful of exposure.

My dad, Jeff, drinks from plastic bottles filled with Naboo's purified water because he doesn’t trust the tap anymore.

The mosquitoes fly until October these days. Last fall they stuck around all the way into November. I heard officials are considering eradicating certain species.

It’s mid February now and the ants are already swarming inside Portland homes. I make use of them and project my sticky tongue to lap them up and gain their protein. Some comic relief in times of scarcity.

People expect everything to be serious like Terminator, but there’s value in childlike play.

You can’t underestimate anyone. One day you’re banished for your clumsiness and the next you’re elected a senator. Life and politics are equally convoluted. Among the conflicting opinions and social turmoil, I often don’t know what to believe.

I have this memory from early childhood where I’m lying on my parent’s bed staring up toward the skylight and an extinct fish meanders in and out of view, for only a moment.

Do you ever see pictures of organisms of the past and feel a deep sense of yourself implicated in universal forces?

All works by Joseph McGehee 2016

Hot Pants is the first in a series of two solo presentations by Joseph McGehee. These pop-ups exhibited within two months of each other in partial fulfillment of an undergraduate thesis project at The Pacific Northwest College of Art.